King of the World
by GlaucusAtlanticus
Summary: On the ice, Viktor Nikiforov is a god. In front of a camera, he's an icon. On a sailboat...not so much. Yuuri is trying very hard not to laugh.


_Takes place between Episodes 4 and 5. It's not a date but they're both totally pretending it's a date._

* * *

"Mr. Tanaka!" Yuuri shouts halfway across Pine Grove Bridge. "Are you alright?"

They've just finished practice, and it's well past noon. The elderly fisherman is usually gone by now, but today he's sitting on the ground and rubbing his shoulder. Yuuri and Viktor stop next to him.

"I'm alright. Thank you, lads. I just pulled a muscle earlier and it's acting up again."

"Is there anything we can do?" Yuuri asks. "Call someone, carry your basket?"

Mr. Tanaka smiles and shakes his head. "No need. I'll be up in a minute. But I wouldn't say no to some company."

Yuuri relaxes, and sits down beside him. He translates the conversation for Viktor, who sits down as well.

"I always see you fishing out here in the mornings," Viktor asks, "What do you catch?"

"Honestly? Not much." Mr. Tanaka chuckles. "Too many boats on the river, it disturbs the fish. Really, I'm here to watch the sunrise and the town waking up. Now, when I'm sailing out in the bay, there I catch a lot of _sayomi, hon-kamasu, kisu, kuromasu_ and _tai_."

Yuuri doesn't know the English names for all those, so he has to Google pictures of the fish to show Viktor.

"I didn't know you sailed, sir," Yuuri says. He looks out over the bay. "Man. I haven't been on the water since high school."

Mr. Tanaka sighs.

"Not so often, now that my kids have left for Fukuoka. I can manage on my own, but I think I'll have to call off tomorrow's trip."

"The shoulder?"

"Aye. It's no problem for everyday tasks, but all those ropes and knots with a bad shoulder is asking for trouble."

Viktor stands up and leans over the rail. He watches the canoes and rowboats pass by below.

"I've never been on a boat," he says, "I bet it's beautiful out there."

Yuuri turns to him incredulously at that. "But St. Petersburg is a port town, isn't it? With its own river?"

"I was busy. School and skating take a lot of time."

"But _never_?"

Viktor shakes his head, and Yuuri tells Mr. Tanaka what they said.

The old man grins. "Would you like to give it a try?"

It does sound relaxing, and Mr. Tanaka is a kind man. Yuuri isn't even done translating when Viktor says "Yes!" and declares tomorrow a rest day.

They arrive at the docks early the next morning, when the stars are still out and the town is asleep. The sea breeze is cold at this hour, and the only sounds are the roar of the ocean and the creak of wooden planks under their feet.

Mr. Tanaka stands ramrod straight like a sergeant, but his smile is warm. He confirms that they both know how to swim and instructs them on what to do if someone falls overboard. He makes them repeat the words back to him, and Viktor stumbles over the Japanese badly enough that Yuuri and Mr. Tanaka start laughing at him.

"Good enough," says Mr. Tanaka, and leads them to his boat.

The _Kamemaru_ , or "Beloved Turtle," is a little white sloop, old but well loved. There's space for two sails, in front and in back, connected by a tall mast that Viktor gawks up at.

"It's big," he murmurs, and Yuuri snorts. Viktor thinks _this_ is big?

Yuuri starts naming parts of the boat while Mr. Tanaka inspects the rigging. He knows both the English and Japanese terms, but only mentions the Japanese ones. Viktor will only need those words anyway to understand Mr. Tanaka.

" _Seisaku_ are the ropes and cables fixed in place. _Dousaku_ are the ones that move the sails. The front sail is the _heddoseiru_ and the back sail is the _meinseiru_. At the bottom of the _meinseiru_ there's a rod called the _buumu_ , and it swings around when the boat turns. So mind your head."

There are a lot of words, and by the time he's finished, Viktor is practically vibrating in place. Yuuri can't fault him: he's excited, too.

At last Mr. Tanaka declares the boat ready and beckons them on. Yuuri boards first, and holds onto the rail for a few seconds while his balance adjusts. Viktor hops on afterward—and falls over immediately. Yuuri catches him in his arms and Viktor _squeaks_.

"You really don't have your sea-legs, huh?" he asks.

Viktor clings to him, wide eyes staring down at the deck. "Yuuri! It's _rocking_!"

"Boats tend to do that, Viktor."

"Oh my god."

It's all Yuuri can do not to burst out laughing. Mr. Tanaka doesn't even hesitate. He chortles and tosses them a couple of puffy neon-orange life jackets. Yuuri pries Viktor off of him, and Viktor immediately grabs the mast to steady himself. Yuuri buckles his life jacket before picking up Viktor's. Viktor eyes it like a rabbit watching a fox.

"I can swim just fine," he protests.

"Don't care. Captain says life jackets, we wear life jackets."

He ends up putting the jacket on Viktor for him, because Viktor is still too wobbly to do it himself. Within a few seconds Viktor is clinging to him like a barnacle again. At any other time, Yuuri would be blushing and incoherent from holding Viktor so closely, but right now?

"Viktor. We haven't even attached the sails yet. We are standing still in the water."

" _Nothing_ on this boat is standing still!"

"Do you want to go back ashore?"

"No!"

Right now, it's _hilarious._

Mr. Tanaka grins at them and hands the sails to Yuuri and Viktor. He explains how to attach them in slow Japanese, with lots of pointing and hand motions, and Yuuri translates whatever can't be gestured. He takes the back sail and begins hoisting it, and Viktor adds the front sail when Yuuri tells him to. Mr. Tanaka adjusts the direction of the boat while they work.

Viktor's face breaks into a huge heart-shaped grin as he watches the sails go up. "This is _so cool._ "

His voice is just above a whisper, and his eyes are wide like a child's. Then the boat rocks and he flails like a drunkard before grabbing the railing. He frowns at the water and says something in Russian which Yuuri doesn't understand, but which is probably not very polite.

Yuuri's face hurts from smiling so much. Taking Viktor Nikiforov sailing is the best decision he's ever made.

Mr. Tanaka tells Yuuri how to trim the sails, and calls out when Yuuri has adjusted them just right.

"Great job, you two!" He unties the rope holding the boat in place, and they're off. Mr. Tanaka steers them out of the port, telling Yuuri when to re-set the sails and the rigging. Yuuri passes on everything he hears to Viktor.

Mr. Tanaka takes them out to the middle of the bay, and they have a clear view of Hasetsu Castle, the Pine Grove and Mount Kagamiyama. He tells them to drop the anchor. Then he takes out his fishing gear. The sky is lightening now, and it will be sunrise soon. The stars are starting to fade above them.

"Viktor!" Yuuri calls, "Do you know how to navigate by the stars?"

Viktor stares straight up. "No! Can you?"

Yuuri pulls him over to the port railing—because Viktor _still_ can't walk a straight line across the deck—and looks in the general direction of north. They're both leaning on the rail now. Viktor tries to scan the sky too, even though he doesn't know what to look for.

"There." Yuuri points. "That's the North Star. It always points north, and always stays in the same place."

Viktor grins. "What, do the other stars move or something?"

"Yeah, actually. Most of them rise and set like the Sun does."

Viktor hums, and leans in close to Yuuri so he can follow where Yuuri is pointing better. "How come that one doesn't?"

Yuuri doesn't actually know. "Aliens."

A sudden squeaky wheeze bursts out of Viktor's throat, and it's gone in less than a second. It's a _real_ laugh, Yuuri realizes, not an _interview_ laugh. It tickles Yuuri's ear, and now Yuuri is blushing a little.

They're quiet for a few minutes after that, just standing together and watching the stars wink out, one by one. For once, Yuuri doesn't feel awkward about the silence. There's an orange band on the horizon, and the sky overhead is cloudless and violet-gray.

"Just one star left now," Viktor murmurs, pointing to the last bright speck in the east.

"Not a star," Yuuri says. "That's the planet Venus."

"Ah, the Roman goddess of love."

Viktor smiles at him, and even though he hasn't moved he's suddenly _too close_ for Yuuri to be comfortable, so Yuuri scoots away with the pretense of checking the sails and the rigging even though they're absolutely fine. Viktor watches him from the rail, still smiling softly.

"You know a lot about the stars, don't you?"

"Oh, um, just a bit," Yuuri shrugs, inspecting a knot more closely than he needs to.

"What got you interested in them?"

"Well..." He scratches the back of his head. "You know how I like to practice alone, right?"

"Right."

"I couldn't afford private rink time," he admits, "But Yuuko's family let me practice after hours, when the rink would have been closed anyway. So I wound up taking a lot of walks at night, right over Pine Grove Bridge. When you look up at the sky there, with no buildings or trees in the way, it's _huge_. And I saw all those stars night after night, so, I got curious about them."

Viktor is silent. Yuuri still can't look at him. It's not much of a story, so Yuuri fumbles around for something else to say.

"Did you ever look at the stars?"

He winces. Yeah, that's not a dumb question at all, Yuuri thinks sarcastically. Who hasn't seen stars?

"Not really."

...Apparently not Viktor?

"The streets and buildings in St. Petersburg light up every night, far more than here," Viktor says, looking back towards the shore. Hasetsu is still mostly dark. "It's beautiful, especially along the river. But that also means it's too bright to see the stars very well. Today was the best view I've ever had of them."

He waves at Mr. Tanaka and shouts "Thank you very much!" in Japanese, and Mr. Tanaka looks up from his fishing line to wave back. Viktor walks to the prow of the boat, finally back on balance, and squints at the rising sun. There's a slight smile on his face. His hair appears golden in the morning light. He'd look like a character out of a fairytale, except for the ugly life jacket he's wearing.

He turns Yuuri and grins. "Put your arms around me."

"What?" Yuuri's heart stutters. "Why?"

"You'll see!"

Yuuri warily complies. Viktor turns around so that Yuuri is hugging him from behind. Then he throws out his arms and shouts, "I'm the king of the world!"

Silence. Yuuri drops his arms, and Mr. Tanaka stares at them curiously.

Viktor's smile flickers. "Haven't you ever seen _Titanic_?"

"The sinking boat movie?"

"That's the one!"

"No."

"Ah." Viktor taps his chin. A beat passes. "Me neither."

"Can we not talk about a boat famous for sinking while we are on a boat?"

"Oh, right." Viktor turns back to the ocean, and yells, "Never mind!"

Yuuri grins a little. He ducks his head apologetically at Mr. Tanaka and repeats "Never mind," in Japanese. Mr. Tanaka just chuckles and turns back to his fishing line.

They stay out in the bay for a while, mostly quiet, occasionally chatting. It's the first sunrise Yuuri's watched since returning to Hasetsu, and he's glad he did. The water, the town, and the cliffs to the west are cast in beautiful shades of pink and gold as the sun climbs into the sky.

He's glad, also, that Viktor finally got to see the stars.

They're watching the light from the waves reflect off the white cliffs when Mr. Tanaka packs up his fishing basket and cooler.

"Say, boys, do you want to see the _Nanatsugama_?"

Yuuri jumps and immediately says "Yes!" He ducks under the _buumu_ rod and is back at his post by the rigging. A second later, Viktor's at the other main rigging area on the opposite side of the boat. He leans down so he can see Yuuri's face without the sail and _buumu_ in the way.

"What are we doing?" he asks.

"We're going to see the _Nanatsugama,_ " Yuuri grins, and refuses to explain any further. If Viktor's liked the trip so far, he'll love this. Yuuri wants to be able to surprise Viktor for once.

Mr. Tanaka calls the orders for adjusting the sails, and this time Viktor actually understands some of them before Yuuri translates. They turn the boat around, ducking the _buumu_ as it swings, and then they're heading west.

The western coast of Hasetsu Bay has no beach, only sharp, jagged cliffs. The exposed rock face is chalky white, with horizontal streaks of gray and black where the layers of stone formed on top of each other millions of years ago. They're lovely, but they're not what Yuuri's so eager to see.

The boat draws closer and closer, and Mr. Tanaka steers ever more carefully, and Yuuri adjusts the sails again to slow the boat down. They're approaching a cliff at the very corner of the bay. He doesn't want to run aground. They round the corner cleanly, and Yuuri's eyes widen as he takes in the sight. Viktor gasps.

Seven enormous sea caverns line the cliff-side, forming a semicircular arrangement, almost as if by design. The cavern walls are lit up like prisms from sunlight reflecting from the water onto the stone. The rock walls between the caverns have been carved into shapes that should be impossible in stone, raw and stretched-out and almost organic. At the base of the caves, the normally serene waters of Hasetsu Bay roil and churn. They are frenzied by a unique configuration of winds, currents and tides, giving them enough force to rip through rock seven times over. Even on a peaceful day, they spray sea-foam everywhere. Atop the cliffs are a forest and hiking trail. The sun lights up the leaves like emeralds, and the wind makes them shimmer and sigh.

Mr. Tanaka has them anchor the boat a safe distance away. After that, nobody speaks. The _Nanatsugama_ is a natural shrine. It needs no priest or scripture to inspire reverence.

They stand at the railing for an uncertain length of time. This place is a strange junction of peaceful and violent: songbirds chirp in the trees while huge waves crest and slam into the cliffs just a few meters below. They are not the tallest cliffs or the biggest caves ever. But they still make Yuuri feel small and humbled.

Then Yuuri's stomach growls.

"Sorry," he whispers.

Mr. Tanaka waves it off. He replies just as softly. "We should be getting back, anyway."

They drift apart, back to the sides and stern of the boat. Yuuri's on the starboard side, and Mr. Tanaka calls out "Mind the _buumu_!" as he turns the boat around. Yuuri ducks. Viktor doesn't.

Yuuri realizes it half a second before it happens—Viktor was still watching the caverns. He hadn't noticed the order. The _buumu_ slams into his head, he goes down, and Yuuri feels the blood drain from his face.

Yuuri runs over to Viktor as fast as he can while being careful. Mr. Tanaka stops and ties the _buumu_ out of the way. Viktor's sprawled flat on the deck, face down, rubbing at the back of his head.

Yuuri kneels down at Viktor's side. His heart pounds in his chest. "Viktor! Are you okay?"

Viktor raises his head and winces. "Ow," he says flatly.

"Can you sit up? How are you feeling?"

"Dizzy. Headache. Got the breath knocked out of me." He pulls himself up to sit next to Yuuri, putting an arm around Yuuri's shoulders to steady himself. "I think that's it."

"Any pain anywhere?"

"Just a bit sore." He raises a finger to his lips and winks. "Maybe you could kiss me and make it better."

Yuuri blushes at that, and his heart speeds up again, now for a different reason. But Viktor's just a flirty guy. It doesn't mean anything.

"Really, Viktor? _Really_?" Yuuri shakes his head. "You're awful."

"Hey, you can't be mean to me, I have a head injury!"

Yuuri snorts, in spite of himself, and feels his heart rate gradually returning to normal. The _buumu_ is heavy, but it wasn't moving very fast. If Viktor's feeling good enough to argue with Yuuri and make bad jokes, he's going to be fine.

Yuuri and Mr. Tanaka still make Viktor sit down for the rest of the trip back. They remind him twice every time the boat is about to turn. Yuuri handles the sails himself.

The return trip proves blessedly uneventful. There are many more boats on the water now, but the _Kamemaru_ is small and agile enough that it's no problem. Mr. Tanaka ties the boat to its dock. Yuuri takes down the sails and Viktor wraps up the loose ropes and ties them out of the way. They put their life jackets away.

"Thank you both," says Mr. Tanaka with a smile. "It's been a long time since I got to go sailing with anyone else."

"It was a pleasure," Yuuri says. "Thanks for letting us join you. How's your shoulder?"

"Much better."

They both step off the boat. Viktor follows, babbling and waving his hands.

"That was amazing! It was—"

The moment Viktor steps on the dock, he stumbles again. Yuuri puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Viktor starts clinging to Yuuri again while rambling on.

"It was so much fun, wasn't it Yuuri? The stars and the sea and the sun and the cliffs and the caves—it's so pretty! I saw a planet! I helped sail a real _boat_!"

Yuuri is blushing a little, but not from embarrassment this time. Despite getting bumped on the head, Viktor seems to have genuinely enjoyed himself, and Yuuri feels warm inside at that thought.

Mr. Tanaka chuckles. "I think I can guess what your boyfriend's saying without the translation."

The word _boyfriend_ makes Yuuri's heart do a quadruple flip. Even though it's not true.

"He's not—" Yuuri stops. Gives up. Decides he can pretend, if only for a minute.

He clears his throat and starts over. "I mean...he says thank you and he's very happy."

They leave the docks when Viktor is finally able to walk like a normal person on land again, and Yuuri wonders how Viktor can be so graceful on the ice and so clumsy on the water. It's hard to believe the dork in an orange life vest yelling movie lines at the ocean is the same athlete Yuuri grew up idolizing. Being on the _Kamemaru_ felt like an alternate reality.

Viktor stumbles again a few times on the way home. Yuuri would be concerned, except that Viktor has a knack for always falling into Yuuri's arms. Each time, Yuuri catches him. Each time, Viktor beams up at him, and stands up again only grudgingly, fingers trailing down Yuuri's arm.

He might be faking it. But even if he is, Yuuri's not going to complain.

* * *

Notes: The Pine Grove, Mount Kagamiyama, and the Nanatsugama are places found around Karatsu, the city Hasetsu is based on. Hasetsu Castle is based on Karatsu Castle. The waters of the real Nanatsugama are calmer, though. I like to think Mr. Tanaka is the fisherman Viktor and Yuuri greet as they cross the bridge in Episodes 2 and 3.

Some of the Japanese sailing terms here are loanwords from English, funnily enough. Buumu = boom, heddoseiru = headsail, meinseiru = mainsail.


End file.
